Nokia’s much-awaited touchscreen phone is finally launched in India. The much speculated and talked about phone -- Nokia 5800 XpressMusic -- is touted as the company's answer to Apple iPhone.

Seems, the world's top cellphone maker took some cues from Apple iPhone’s pricing in India, Nokia 5800 is priced at Rs 21,800 (almost Rs 9,000 less than 8GB iPhone and Rs 14,000 less than 16 GB iPhone).

The phone will also feature Nokia's Comes With Music service, which challenges Apple Inc's dominance in the digital music market.

Wondering what are the other specs that Nokia’s contender in the touchscreen phone market offers? Read on to find out.

On the looks front Nokia 5800 has same rounded corners and similar screen like iPhone. The screen size is 81mm (3.2-inch) diagonally, with 640x480-pixel touchscreen display that can play multiple types of video at a high resolution.

Measuring 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm, the Nokia 5800 weighs 109 grams. Positioned as a music phone, the phone will be available in black, red, and blue variants.

The phone supports both finger and stylus touch.

Storage and battery

Nokia's touch phone comes with 81MB internal memory, 8GB microSD memory card, capable of storing approximately 6,000 songs. The memory can be further expanded upto 16GB. Nokia 5800 is equipped with the Symbian S60 interface which Nokia showed off last year.

The battery life is reportedly as much as nine hours (GSM) or five hours (HSDPA), 35 hours for music playback or three hours of video. The company claims that the standby time is up to 17 days.

Multimedia features

Nokia 5800 has 3.2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash with 30 fps video recording. It also has a second backward facing camera.

Unlike the Apple iPhone, the Nokia 5800 has Flash support, a programme used to power many online video services and websites.

The phone has a Media Bar, a drop down menu that provides direct access to music and entertainment.

A new Contacts Bar lets users highlight four favorite contacts on their homescreen. There is also an option to track digital history of recent text messages, email, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

Nokia 5800 also has an accelerometer for display rotation. However, the phone's biggest miss is the ability to download extra software and applications, which is possible in both Apple iPhone and Google G1.

Cost

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Priced at Rs 21, 839, Nokia's touchscreen phone will be available at other mobile stores starting 15th January. Currently it is available at all Nokia Priority dealers.

In India Nokia sell phones with no operator lock, unlike Apple iPhone with Bharti and Airtel.

So, seems Nokia 5800 Xpress Music is all set to give tough competition to Apple iPhone which retails at Rs 31,000 for 8GB and Rs 36,000 for 16GB in India. Google phone G1, said to reach India by January end, is also likely to be priced above Rs 20,000.

Supports 3G

Like the iPhone and other smartphone rivals including BlackBerry Storm and Samsung Omnia, Nokia's touch phone too offers support for 3G. This enables faster Web browsing and downloading.

The handset is a GSM/EDGE/HSDPA 3G device along with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (with stereo audio) and USB 2.0 connectivity. It also has A-GPS and Nokia Maps for voice-guided navigation.

High on music

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Billed as a music phone, Nokia 5800 comes pre-loaded with a vast range of music collection. The phone will feature Nokia's Comes With Music service which will let users download music for free for a year from a catalog that includes 4 million songs.

Nokia's music download package is its first major push into the services business. The company said that all major music labels and most independent labels will offer their tracks as part of Nokia's 'free' music bundle "Comes with Music," raising the total number of tracks to around 5 million.

The phone support Playback protected WMA, AAC and MP3, and is reportedly compatible with Windows Media Player 11.

Other music features include stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo Bluetooth, and a guitar pick stylus.